Unlike most American teenagers dreaming of a career in racing, Tyler Palmer isn’t eyeing NASCAR or IndyCar.

“I’ve always loved sports cars,” says Palmer. “I like the difference in the cars. I like the road courses. And I love the fact that you can race side-by-side going left and right. It’s a dimension you don’t see in most other forms of racing.”

Palmer, an 18-year-old Carlsbad High graduate and mechanical engineering student at MiraCosta College, takes another step forward in his driving career this season when he teams with Arizona’s Scott Kuhne campaigning a Mini Cooper on the Pirelli World Challenge Cup series.

Up until this point, Palmer has won a series of championships racing go-karts (since the age of eight) and Porsche 944s on the North American Sportscar Association (NASA) circuit.

“The Pirelli Cup is my first pro series,” Palmer said earlier this week. “You never know where things might take you, but this is a great opportunity.”

Although he started racing karts at the age of eight, Palmer first made a name for himself in 2009 when he became the first driver in five decades to win six International Karting Federation national titles in the same weekend.

A year later, with the help of family and friends, Palmer started racing cars before he was old enough to have a driver’s license.

Palmer’s father Greg owns Malibu Body and Paint on Kearny Mesa. The shop next door is John Rickard’s Black Forest Porsche. Both shops specialize in Porsches – Rickard’s on the mechanical side and Palmer’s on the cosmetic side.

Rickard also races Porsche 944s, which were produced from 1975 through 1988, and earlier sponsored Eric Kinninger on the POC tour.

“They are very hearty, tough little cars,” said Rickard of the Porsche 944. “They are simple and easy to maintain.”

When the Palmers decided it was time for Tyler to advance from karts to cars, they elected to buy a 944 and team with Rickard on the NASA circuit.

As a racing class, the 944’s popularity took off in the mid-1990s after the production run ended. “The main reason is the cars became affordable for club racers,” said Rickard. Last year, thirty cars were on the line at Mid-Ohio Raceway for NASA’s Porsche 944 Spec Class Nationals.

That is where Tyler Palmer won his second straight NASA Porsche 944 national championship. In fact, Palmer has won 25 of his 29 starts in his 944 since debuting in July of 2010.

He finished fourth in his first race and won his second on the regional NASA circuit. In the fifth race of his career, Palmer finished second in the 2010 Porsche 944 finals at Miller Park Raceway in Utah. Last year, he bettered the old class record at Mid-Ohio on each of the last six laps he ran at Mid-Ohio.

“I love the Porsche 944,” says Palmer, who will continue to race on the NASA series this season while not campaigning on the 14-race Pirelli Cup series. His first NASA race of 2013 is this weekend in Indio.

“It’s a driver’s car,” Palmer said of the 944. “It is nicely balanced. You are always able to predict how the car is going to handle. It’s just fun to drive. People love them.”

Palmer’s goal is to eventually race in sports car events like the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring or the German Touring Car Series. His racing idols include sports car and road racing champions Scott Pruett and Boris Said.

Hopefully, the Pirelli Cup will be a stepping stone for Palmer. The Pirelli Cup events are usually prelims to American Le Mans and Grand-Am sports car races and are televised by the NBC Sports Network. The tour will take Palmer for the first time to such tracks as Infineon Raceway, Lime Rock and Texas Motor Speedway for the first time in addition to street circuits in Toronto and Houston.